The 2021 Best Firms to Work For: FTI Consulting

Client Industries Served: Aerospace & Defense; Agriculture; Airlines & Aviation; Automotive & Industrial; Construction; Energy, Power & Products ("EPP"); Environmental; Financial Services; Healthcare & Life Sciences; Hospitality, Gaming & Leisure; Insurance; Mining; Public Sector & Government Contracts; Real Estate, Retail & Consumer Products; Telecom, Media & Technology ("TMT"); and Transportation & Logistics.

Consulting Service Lines: FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes: financial, legal, operational, political & regulatory, reputational and transactional. Business segments include: Corporate Finance & Restructuring; Forensic & Litigation Consulting; Economic Consulting; Technology; Strategic Communications

CMAG: How would you say you've managed to stay among the industry's Best Firms to Work For amid these unprecedented times?

Our success in the face of the many challenges of the past year-plus speaks to the strength of our enterprise and its relevance to clients facing major events. In turn, that strength is only possible because of the tremendous dedication and resilience of our more than 6,400 employees globally. Our teams have been and are building businesses that are global and diverse, but most important, powerful. Each can be affected by markets in the short term. But the last years have shown that if we do the right things for our clients, over an extended period of time, we are not corks on a wave, but rather, we are folks who determine our own future. What we do trumps the market forces.

CMAG:  Were there any specific programs or initiatives (internal or external) that contributed to you being a Best Firm to Work For?

We hire folks who are ambitious, client-oriented and eager to learn. We invest behind those people to ensure they have the skills necessary to be superb at their client work and build their businesses. We have always emphasized coaching and training because when our people succeed, our clients succeed. The pandemic required us to invest a significant amount to ensure we could continue to do mentoring in a remote environment, and we rose to the challenge of moving our talent development programs online, enabling our people to access training programs regardless of where they were located.

CMAG: What is unique about your firm? What sets it apart?

At FTI Consulting, we are committed to supporting our people and investing behind them, in weak quarters as well as in strong ones, a strategy that we believe creates an enterprise that delivers increasingly powerful results for our clients and supports the growth, development and aspirations of the talented people who choose to build their careers here. In recent years, we have broadened and strengthened this commitment by focusing on ensuring that the people we are attracting and promoting embody our core values and represent the breadth of diverse talent in our society. The aspiration to broaden the pools of people who find us a great place to work is a critical pillar for sustaining our multi-year growth trajectory for years and years to come.

CMAG: What's the top priority over the next 6 to 12 months?

The next six to 12 months will undoubtedly not only see the ongoing effects of the pandemic but also the beginnings of the post-pandemic world. In that environment, our focus is on helping our clients successfully overcome enormous challenges, but also seizing the enormous opportunities a post-pandemic world will have. Internally, our challenge is to ensure that our teams remain safe, remain connected, and remain able to support their loved ones in times of stress, while also tapping their enormous capabilities and desires to help our clients win.

CMAG: When you look at the remainder of this year and 2022, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your markets?

The pandemic is changing the world and will leave the world a different place — one filled with both ongoing challenges and enormous opportunities. We look forward to working side-by-side with our clients to successfully confront the core issues but also seize many of the core opportunities that will be ahead.

CMAG: What impact do you think being a Best Firm to Work For has on the firm? Employees? Clients?

Our people aspire to make sure we are the firm our clients call upon in times of crisis, to work on the most important jobs and make the biggest impact. Over the last few years, there have been a huge number of indicators that we have been succeeding in that endeavor, from the number of headline jobs won, to the value created for clients, to the number of people who want to join us and advance their careers here. To have an organization like Consulting magazine recognize FTI Consulting as a Best Firm to Work For is a powerful confirmation that is meaningful to me and many of our people.